Lesson 1: International Phytosanitary Standards
Topic 2: Market Access
In this topic, we review the process individual countries may use to make market access decisions about plant health issues associated with trade.
Objective:
- Recall the guiding principles of granting market access.
The SPS agreement recognizes that in order to set trade policies, countries may need to consider not only the international standards, but also current factors influencing risk to the importing and exporting countries.
Although each country may set its own requirements, all decisions about market access should be guided by a few core principles. The following principles help countries enact legally sound SPS measures that are effective, transparent, and scientifically justified.
Whatever requirements the country decides to implement, they must be publicly available. Many countries make their requirements available through online databases. In the USA, the Fruits and Vegetables Import Requirements (FAVIR) database is the easiest way to find the requirements for importation of fruits and vegetables into the United States. It combines requirements from all available U.S. sources, including both the rule-making process and the notice-based process for market access requests, which can be reviewed in Module 3.
Market access for exported goods is driven by the interests of business stakeholders such as producers, exporters, and importers. However, national governments are the sole entities that can request, and grant, market access. Countries work through their National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) to negotiate and finalize market access agreements. Each country that is a member of the IPPC must have a functioning NPPO with the authority to evaluate market access requests and enter into market access agreements with trade partners.
The NPPO should work with producers to gather information about the commodity for which access has been requested and to determine what mitigation strategies might be practical. Pest risk analysis (PRA) for the commodity guides the decisions about which pests need to be mitigated and what risk management measures are required for safe trade. The key concepts of PRA will be reviewed in the next lesson.
In general, market access is driven by stakeholders in the production and export/import sectors, but only NPPOs can navigate the intricacies of requesting and gaining market access. For more details on the concepts covered here, please review Module 3 of this course.
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